In alarm systems, such as building fire alarm systems, it is desirable to have audio capabilities. Audio capabilities enable emergency messages to be passed between fire control panels and/or audio panels in an alarm system. As public safety is impacted by building alarm systems, standards have been developed by organizations in the United States and Europe.
Some standards, such as UL 864 9th Edition and S527 3rd Edition require the audio paths within fire alarm systems be monitored to assure their operational status and any fault on these systems be announced within 200 seconds. Fire alarm systems are also required to have minimal operation of the audio path within the respective fire alarm system while under battery mode power. However, standards for fire alarm systems do not specify any operational or power requirements while the fire alarm system is not processing an emergency message or corresponding audio through the audio panel of the system either in active or battery mode. Moreover, conventional fire alarm systems don't supervise the respective audio path of the fire alarm system while in battery mode and don't conserve power usage of the fire alarm system. In particular, amplifier cards or units within a fire alarm system consume significant power.
What is needed in the art is an approach that enables monitoring the audio paths internal and external to a fire alarm system in an efficient way while reducing the amount of power consumption required by the fire alarm system including the amplifier unit(s) of such system, especially while operating in battery mode.